Are you reading what I'm reading?

Throughout my time here in Mexico I have seen a lot of funny signs in spanish.  For example,  a sign next to a cenote said "If you don't know how to swim, don't get in the water."  Another personal favorite are the signs on the side of the road that instruct drivers to "obey the signs."

However, nothing can top the number of signs I have seen here in English.  Before I write down some of the best that I have seen, I want to first let you know that I am in no way trying to make fun of those learning english.  There are great number of people here that speak english better than even I do.  That being said, most of these signs do make me laugh because they are written poorly in english.  Secondly, I want to add that I have photo proof  of all of these signs.  I couldn't make this stuff up even if I tried!

Ok, here it goes.

Inside of a cenote, a sign in spanish saying "dear visitor, wet stones are slippery.  Walk at your own risk"  was translated into "dear tourist,  wet stone are slepering.  thank you."

In the same cenote another sign in spanish saying "walk at your own risk" was translated two different ways: "precautions tourist, take care of your self" and "friend visitor, walk easily."

Walking up the stairs of a hostel, the low ceiling read: "Be careful.  Down Head."

In the bathroom, a sign telling people not to throw toilet paper into the toilet (yes, you don't throw it in the toilet) was translated to "Do not pull out the garbage in the toilet."

At the waterfalls there was a sign that read "Dangerous not to swim."  It was right next to the spanish version saying "dangerous to get in the water."  It was a little confusing to those who were bilingual and very dangerous to those who only spoke english.

Finally, my favorite of them all was not really a sign at all.  It was a list of rules that we found on the back of our hotel door.  I'll type out the list word for word, letter for letter and let you decide for yourself what they are trying to say.  Honestly, I can't even figure out a few of them.  Here they are, the hotel's rules:

1. The guest don't get in alcoholic drunks into the room.

2. The hotel is not responsible about values objects or documents lost into the room if these aren't protected on the hotel's reception.

3. If the guest is surprised doing a bad use into the room; painting walls or breaking an furniture, it will pay.  Please avoid us to report to you to the municipal's autorities.

4. If the guest lost the room's key, it cost will be $65 pesos mn.

5. If the guest take any thing of the room, like: towels, sheets, etc., it will pay double of its price and will be notified to the municipal's autorities.

6. If the guest smoke or inhale any toxic substance, will be reported inmediately to the municipal's autorities.

While all the rules are good, my personal favorite is rule number 3.  

I realize that some of you may not find these mistranslations funny at all.  I however can laugh because I know that I make the exact same mistakes when I translate into spanish.  The only difference is that I would check to make sure I had everything right before printing it on a large sign.

My Lesson of the Day: Some things just aren't easy to translate.